Remco Evenepoel warmed down on his golden time trial bike and studied the new GC standing of the Tour de France after stage 4, pleased to have finished in the slipstream of Tadej Pogačar after the rollercoaster finale of the stage to Rouen.
The Soudal-QuickStep rider can now look forward to Wednesday's 33km time trial in the hope it is his chance to gain precious seconds.
Evenepoel lost three seconds as Pogačar sprinted past Mathieu van der Poel to take his 100th career victory. Now 58 seconds from the yellow jersey, and true to character, Evenepoel is convinced he has a chance of taking the yellow jersey in the time trial.
"The difference to the yellow jersey is 58 seconds, so a yellow dream is possible," he said at the Soudal-QuickStep team bus speaking patiently in Dutch, French and then English.
Evenepoel lost 39 seconds to Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard on stage 1 and was caught in a late crash on stage 3. He fought back on the hilly final of stage 4, boosting his morale.
"It was a good day," he said to a small group of English media, including Cyclingnews.
"I'm very happy with the feeling, even if I was really on the limit in the last five hundred metres. I just didn't have the legs to sprint anymore.
"Maybe my attack with two kilometres to go was unnecessary. I just wanted to see if the other would react or not but they didn't give me any space, which is normal. Losing three seconds is OK. It would have been worse to lose 30 or 40 seconds. I'm happy with the feeling and the legs."
Evenepoel won the early 25km time trial stage of the 2024 Tour de France around the Nuits-Saint-Georges vineyards. He beat Pogačar by 12 seconds, Primož Roglič by 34 seconds and Vingegaard by 37.
Wednesday's time trial is eight kilometres long and arguably suits Evenepoel even more, hence his yellow jersey ambitions.
"I have the legs to win," he said. "Unfortunately I was unable to do a TT recon due to my injury in the winter. But my coach Koen Pelgrim put a video of the course in our Whatsapp group, so I'll watch it on my iPad later on the way to the hotel. Then on Wednesday morning I'll do a nice recon.
"It seems to be pretty straightforward and so not technical at all. There's a small climb at the start but nothing crazy. It should really suit me and I'm really motivated to do very well and gain back quite some time."
The Tour de France is the biggest race in cycling, and a Cyclingnews subscription offers you unlimited access to our unrivalled coverage. Get all the breaking news and analysis from our team on the ground in France, plus the latest pro tech, live race reports, and a daily subscriber-only newsletter with exclusive insight into the action. Find out more.
